


A boy and his falcon

by DestielsDestiny



Series: How Magnus Bane Found a Family [5]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Alcohol, Background Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood, Bad Parent Maryse Lightwood, Child Abuse, Falcon story, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Jace Wayland Feels, M/M, Magnus Bane Being Magnus Bane, POV Jace Wayland, Protective Alec Lightwood, Protective Magnus Bane, Sibling Bonding, Sweet Magnus, episode tag 2x07
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-12
Updated: 2017-02-12
Packaged: 2018-09-23 18:28:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9670820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DestielsDestiny/pseuds/DestielsDestiny
Summary: Jace tells the falcon story again. Magnus asks a question nobody ever has before.





	

**Author's Note:**

> AN: Set sometime between 2x07 and 2x08.

Alec is called away on patrol a mere four hours before Max’s party is schedule to begin. Jace watches the resigned look that crosses his parabatai’s face from his lounging position on Magnus’ sofa, and somehow knows that this is part of the deal Alec struck with Aldertree, with Maryse, to permit Max’s rune ceremony afterparty to be held at a warlock’s apartment. 

It kills Jace inside to have to stay behind while his parabatai walks into potential danger. It kills him almost as much that he doesn’t know why, why it was so important that this party happen, why Alec was willing to strike a bargain like this to make it happen, why Magnus was willing to let him. 

But then, Jace still hasn’t told Alec why he’s lounging on Magnus’ couch, so he keeps his mouth shut as Alec drops a kiss on Magnus’ lips, and strides out the door, all leather jacket and new found confidence. Jace is struck more and more these days by how much he is coming to love Magnus for what he’s done for his parabatai. 

“Well Jace, he’s gone, so you can get your feet off my furniture and go try on that suit I picked out for you.” Jace feels himself stiffen. It’s not that Magnus has acted disdainful, or even annoyed at his presence. It’s more that he isn’t nearly as easily fooled as Alec by Jace’s damn near perfect, I am the greatest thing ever performance, and subsequently seems to have made it his mission to break Jace of the falsity through a bizarre combination of motherhenness and annoying chiding. 

Case in point, acting put upon by Jace sitting on his couch while buying him expensive clothes for a party he is hosting possibly-Jace is reasonably sure-for the sole reason that if it’s held here, Jace will be able to be there, be able to see his baby brother. 

Jace can’t quite stop the prickle of rebellion that flickers to life in him at Magnus’ expectant tone, the warlock’s notably subdued shirt back facing away from him as he casually fixed himself a cocktail, for once by hand. 

He didn’t offer Jace a drink. He never does. Though there always seems to be a fresh pitcher of water and a glass readily available, wherever Jace goes in the apartment. 

Jace lounges further, deliberately getting more comfortable in the pillows. He waits. 

Magnus is an expert drink fixer, so the seven seconds it takes him to stir an olive into his cocktail glass and turn back to his couch is dissatisfyingly short in Jace’s plans of artful defiance. 

Magnus’ utter lack of reaction is also not exactly gratifying. He doesn’t even pause in his forward motion, waving a hand casually to move Jace and his pillows far enough over to allow himself a comfortable seat on Jace’s right.  
Jace is coming to rather like the feel of Magnus’ magic. He’s never been tickled before, but he suspects it feels somewhat like that. 

Magnus ruins the thought by taking a sip of his drink, setting it carefully aside, and turning to regard Jace with a patient air. “So, what’s troubling you little shadowhunter?” 

This is certainly the most direct Magnus has gotten in the last week, but Jace is more than ready for him. 

“Well, my father wasn’t a very nice man doc.” He sinks obnoxiously back into the pillows, a smirk playing across his features. Magnus appears utterly unaffected. 

“Interesting use of the past tense.” Jace feels his smirk slip. He suddenly doesn’t feel all that much like playing this game. 

“Did Alec ever tell you about my falcon?” Magnus appears taken aback for a moment, and Jace feels the faintest thrill of unexpected victory. Magnus shakes his head, his drink floating itself back into his hand absently. 

Jace lets himself relax again, the smirk returning as a slightly warmer smile. 

“When I was ten, my father gave me a falcon for my birthday. He said it was my job to make it obey. I spent all my time with it, fed it, flew it, taught it to come back to my wrist over and over. I adored it, it was the best present I’d ever gotten.” Magnus took a casual sip of his drink. 

“I should imagine it was the only present you’d ever gotten, considering the psychopath you were living with.” Jace felt his face heat. 

“My father wasn’t a psychopath, not to me.” He isn’t sure where the forceful words come from, but Magnus seems to continue to be casually indifferent. The warlock waves a magnanimous hand. “My apologies, I interrupted. Do continue.”

The pillows shift uncomfortably around Jace’s shoulder blades, and he launches himself from the couch with a bounce. “One day, about a month after my birthday, my father came home from one of his trips. I was so excited to show him what we’d accomplished. I flew the bird for him, ran up to his horse with it on my shoulder. I remember being so happy to see him.”

Jace carefully examines the French doors onto the balcony, deliberately shutting his ears to his audience. “My father took one look at the bird, and one look at me, and reached out his hand.” Jace barked out a harsh laugh. “I thought he was going to pet it. Instead he snapped it’s neck, right there beside my ear. I can still hear the crack sometimes.”

Jace turns dry eyes back to the couch, meets Magnus’ gaze head on and tries not to freeze at the depth of emotion he finds there, at the sheer horror painted across the warlock’s face. “But you know what the worst thing was? It wasn’t what he did. It was after that.” Jace spits out the words like bullets, each one appearing to impact Magnus’ chest as he looked more and more distressed and compassionate. Jace wanted to hate him for that. 

“The worst thing was when he patted me on the head afterwards, and said “I love you son.” He was always saying that, the man who always taught me that “to love is to destroy,” who snapped the neck of my only friend because it loved me, who told me…” 

Jace can’t find the moisture to clear his throat enough to continue. Across the room, Magnus remained perfectly still, drink held loosely in one hand. 

“What was his name?” The question takes Jace by surprise, snapping his eyes back to Magnus, who has gone from devastated to serene in a matter of moments. Jace can’t find the words to be articulate. “What?”

“Your falcon. What was his name?” Jace gapes for a moment, trying to process the question no one had ever bothered to ask him before, had even thought would matter. The question that somehow mattered the most. 

“Her name was maman.” It’s barely more than a whisper, but he knows the exact moment that the words register, Magnus’ magic flaring up with an honest to goodness whooshing sound. 

“I have this memory, or thought I had this memory, of my mother stroking my hair as she puts me to sleep. Maman used to do that with her beak, like she was trying to groom me, or soothe me.” 

He doesn’t look at Magnus then, carefully avoids his gaze as the warlock draws in a sharp breath. “Jace, I…” He doesn’t let him get any further. 

“Alec will be back soon, I should go get changed for the party. Thanks for the suit by the way.”

He is half way across the room before he finished speaking, feels Magnus move to follow him, increases his pace. He nearly runs back to his borrowed room, closing the door firmly behind him. 

Jace has told that story in varying versions, to varying degrees, a dozen times over. Somehow, this is the first time he ever cries. 

00

The party is a smashing success, or a complete disaster, depending on who you ask. Maryse doesn’t so much as look at Jace the entire evening, and she makes sure Max doesn’t get within ten feet of him. Suddenly, a lot of things make a lot more sense to Jace. 

He spends the later half of the party getting blind drunk, not even caring what kind of drink he’s consuming, so long as its alcoholic. 

He doesn’t remember passing out, but he could swear later that he dreams of being carried back to his borrowed room and carefully tucked in, soft fingers carding through his sweat soaked hair until he falls asleep. 

It’s the best dream he’s had in years. 

00

Jace wakes up to falcons. It’s the first thing he notices when he opens his eyes. Hard to miss, even with the notable lack of a hangover dulling his senses with surprise. 

It’s the bedsheets that do it, once cream and respectable, not clogged with every form of falcon there is. The ceiling is alive with silhouettes of raptors circling clouds in every colour of the rainbow. The water on his beside table has glitter falcons floating in it. 

His favourite hoodie, the one he lost when he left with Valentine, and never found again, hangs innocuously from the bedpost. Jace can just make out the once solid grey front, where a majestic falcon with golden tipped wings perches proudly in relief. There is an inscription beneath the image, the elegant calligraphy of an M melding into an A unmistakable even in the muted dawn light. 

For the first time in a very long time, Jace begins to think that maybe one day, things will be okay again. 

00

Alec returns from his patrol to find the living room in tatters, pieces of cushion scattered hither and yawn, Magnus a mass of boiling magic and curled lip. 

Dotting around every surface, half hidden by pillow feathers, are frozen images of a little boy and a hawk, laughing, playing, grinning. It might be from before he ever laid eyes on him, but Alec would recognize Jace anywhere. 

Magnus turns to look at him, his eyes more terrible than anything Alec has ever seen. “We need to kill Valentine darling.” The tone is so bland Alec has to blink a few times to get it. 

He stares at the hawk in the picture. He remembers Jace at ten, forced confidence hiding scars that had only widened with time and distance. 

Alec crosses the distance swiftly, hesitates for a moment on uneven piles of pillow fluff, and carefully wraps his arms around his boyfriend. 

“Can we torture him a little first?” Magnus’ bark of laughter is one of the most heartbreaking things Alec’s ever heard. 

Later, if anyone ever asked, Alec would say that this was the moment he realized he had fallen in love with Magnus Bane. The day protecting his parabatai became a job he didn’t have to do alone. 

00

Jace gives his nephew Max a pet falcon for his ninth birthday. Max grins so widely his face is in danger of splitting in two, beaming up at Jace with unshadowed eyes. 

“What should we call him?” His nephew looks so earnest Jace nearly laughs. The bird ruffles its feathers dramatically, and Jace raises his eyes to meet Magnus’ with a knowing grin. 

“How about papa?”


End file.
